[Song by Nicki Minaj - Anaconda] "My Antigua don't,
my Antigua don't,
my Antigua don't want none unless you got Barbuda son."
Yeeeah, my first pop culture refereeence, I promise I'll never do that again.
It's time to learn geography...
NOW!!!
Hey everybody, I'm you host Paul Barbato, today we're gonna do Antigua and Barbuda,
I'm a little excited because this country's a little bit easier, but first you know the drill, let's dissect the flag.
The flag of Antigua and Barbuda is actually pretty cool, it was created in 1967
by Sir Reginald Samuel, the flag has a sun with the blue and white horizon covered by two
red taper triangles on the side, the sun representing the dawning of a new era,
the black representing the black African ancestry of the people,
the blue representing hope and the sea and the white representing the sand.
the red on the sides are cut down into a V-shape to represent victory
and the red representing the vibrancy and the energy of the people.
Now let's talk about where Antigua and the Barbuda are located.
Antigua and Barbuda are located in the Caribbean Sea in the North American continent on the western hemisphere.
The cool thing about Antigua and Barbuda's location is that even though it's located thousands of kilometers
away from mainland Europe, technically you can still fly to France, England and the Netherlands
within a 32 to an hour minute flight.
That's because with the exception of Saint Kitts and Nevis, all of Antigua and Barbuda's immediate
neighbour nations and islands are overseas territories that still belong to the respective European mother nations,
that means that technically you can "go to Europe" without ever crossing the Atlantic.
Islands such as St. Eustatius & Saba for the Netherlands and Montserrat, Anguilla for the UK
and Guadeloupe for France and St. Martin which is technically owned both by the Netherlands and France,
that one little crazy island has such a crazy backstory but we will cover that in another video.
That's not a surprise though, for most of the five centuries of its past history
most of the islands in the Caribbean were occupied by European powers,
including Antigua and Barbuda who have been under mostly British rule for the majority of their recent history.
That is until 1981 when they gained their independence.
The country has two main islands, of course Antigua - the main island in the south
and Barbuda - the relaxing getaway island which is in the shape of a pig in the north.
The capitol is St. John's located on Antigua. Antigua is divided into 6 small parishes
and Redonda Island was nabbed by Antigua and Barbuda as it lies right between St. Kitts & Nevis and Montserrat.
Also, going to Barbuda is gonna be a little bit trickier. All travelers will have to enter into Antigua first
and then either charter a flight and take a ferry to Barbuda.
Now that we know the location, let's talk about what the land actually looks like.
The islands are mostly low-lying islands, the highest point being on Antigua
of volcanic crater named Mount Obama, that's right in 2009 they named their highest point Mount Obama,
if no prior to 2009 Obama had never been to that island and as of 2014
he has yet to have gone to Antigua, nonetheless they named their highest point Mount Obama.
Now both of the islands have lots of beautiful coral reefs and natural lagoons which have an abundance
of aquatic wildlife, one of the most famous spots being stingray city on Antigua.
However the problem is that both of the islands don't really have many natural freshwater resources,
they have a few creeks, however most of their freshwater is stored up in small ponds or resevoirs.
Luckily the islands get plenty of rainwater and their desalinization plants provide them with fresh water as well.
Previously the islands used to have a lot of fig trees, however over the years especially during British colonization
the islands were used for sugar cane plantations.
Now major crops include sea insland cotton, locust fruit and the famous Antiguan black pineapple.
The thing is though about 30% of the land is arable but only about 18% of the land is used for farming and agriculture.
The reason why is because most of the people in Antigua and Barbuda don't really care too much
to go into agriculture sector and the like to go into the tourism sector because it pays more money.
Most major crops are actually grown on family plots and sold at local markets.
Fishing actually takes up a huge part of the economic industry as well as the typical Antiguan and Barbudan diet.
Now of course, like you would expect Antigua and Barbuda have beautiful pristine white sandy beaches
and lagoons and caves, as well as an amazing bird sanctuary on Barbuda.
Antigua actually has about 30 small islets mostly privately owned by rich families or private clubs
including the Mills reef club which owns all of Green Island.
Speaking of rich people, let's talk about the demographics.
Now Antigua and Barbuda has about 86,000 people, about 91% of them are black,
4% are mixed, 2% are white and 3% are other.
Antiguans and Barbudans have a distinct culture that slightly differentiates them from the other Caribbean nations.
The majority of the population, like other Caribbean islands has a black majority that are descendants
of former slaves used for plantation work during the British rule.
Prior to the African and European inhabitants however, Antigua and Barbuda were inhabited by the
Siboney and the Arawaks and the Caribs. It wasn't until Christopher Columbus passed by in the 15. century
and named one of the islands Santa Maria La Antigua or Saint Maria the Ancient
and Barbuda which means the bearded, which could possibly be reference to the bearded tribesmen
that Columbus witnessed as he passed through the islands.
Finally in 1632 the British were the first people to successfully colonize the islands
and today the Amerindian population is actually pretty small, there's only a few hundred left.
However it's very possible that many people have Amerindian heritage passed down on their line and ancestry on the islands.
As a former British colony, of course English is the official language, however they speak
with a distinct Antiguan and Barbudan dialect.
Many of the words are abbreviated and slightly changed based off of the words they're derived from.
For example:
The vast majority of the people live on the island of Antigua with only about 2,000 people living on the Barbuda.
What Barbuda lacks in people though, it definitely makes up in tourism as every single day
tons and tons of people flock to that area to check out some of the most amazing beaches
and tourism sites that it offers. So that's what the people look like in Antigua and Barbuda,
now let's talk about the people that they get along with in the friend zone.
Now when it comes to friends, Antigua and Barbuda pretty much get along with everybody,
they don't have any international disputes, however the countries that stick out the most are probably gonna be
the U.S. and the UK and Venezuela. US and UK because they have the largest economic holding on Antigua and Barbuda
and Venezuela because they are a huge business partner.
As a member of Caricom or the Caribbean Community, Antigua and Barbuda pretty much get along
with all the other nations of the Caribbean and especially most distinctively the ones that speak English
like Jamaica, Barbados, Grenada, Dominica.
However, in terms of their best friend Antigua and Barbuda might probably consider St. Kitts and Nevis
their best friend considering the fact that they are like the four brothers that have gone through
all of the British colonization period together, stuck by each other and they just get along really well.
Plus there's only about 40 nautical miles between them.
They do like to compete a lot with each other though.
In conclusion, Antigua and Barbuda are two powerhouse islands voted as the best place to have a wedding in 2014
It's no surprise that Antigua and Barbuda are the gems that stand out in the Caribbean.
Stay tuned peeps, Armenia is coming up next.
Hey peeps! Thanks a lot your supporting my channel, just a few sidenotes -
I accidentally said Armenia, I meant Argentina.
Argentina is the next video and also, yes I am fully aware that many people pronounce it Antiga not Antigua.
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Have a good one, stay cool, stay tuned...